Discussion

Calling all ground turkey breast fans

I absolutely love ground turkey breast. I think it has such a great flavor and often prefer it over ground beef. However, I have run out of ideas. Any favorite ground turkey breast recipes not intended as many are to hide the flavor?

Do you make meatballs from it? No need to hide the flavour, just put the vegetable (me - onions and garlic), herbs and spices you would usually use for meatballs. You can cook them in the oven, by the way.

I have not, but great idea. I have made burgers before so I guess that's similar but I could then throw them with some marinara sauce probably for a great meal. I usually use them for tacos and any other sauteed ground beef dish.

I make them in bulk and freeze, so for 4 lb ground meat (3:1 or 2:2 turkey:pork), I use ~2-2.5 C dry seasoned breadcrumbs, 2.5 C grated Parmesan or Romano cheese, 1 big onion, and 4 eggs. Make them about 1-1.5" in diameter and bake 20 min at 350/375F. That will make almost 6 dozen meatballs (2 jelly roll trays worth).

Amen! Trader Joe's meatless meatballs have more flavor and meatiness than ground turkey, whether breast or dark meat. I use ground turkey sometimes, as no more than half the meat in a meatloaf/ball mix, the rest being beef, to cut the fat and lessen the shrinkage.

If you want, you can pre-cook some tiny diced onions and garlic in olive oil. Make sure the onion is totally soft. I put the lid on the pot for much of the cooking time to assure total onion uncrunchiness.

Add one or two beaten eggs.

Mix all that together with your hands. Form meatballs. Bake or pan fry, your choice. Serve with a tomato sauce (meatless), or plain.

Yea I am clearly the odd one out here, I actually enjoy the 99% or perhaps I'm just so used to it. Your recipe sounds great, I will give that a try as I've never even attempted meatballs but enjoy them.

One thing I discovered though, when I was browning the meatballs before putting in the oven, that the mixture would make a great hash. Next time I make the recipe, I'm going to skip the balling up stage, mince some potatoes and onions and make a hash out of the combo. I think it would be great with an over-easy egg over the top.

Thanks for the recipe, it looks great and I just added it to the weekend meal plan. I was actually going to ask what you thought was the best use for them and the hash sounds great. Any other ideas? How did you have them last week? Just straight with the sauce?

I actually pondered including it in an omelet or scrambled eggs. In that case as you mentioned you'd just skip the meatball stage and mix the ingredients and cook as you would regular ground meat?

In her cookbook, she recommends serving the meatballs over a chickpea salad (she gives the recipe). My husband isn't a chickpea fan so I made a warm white bean salad with olive oil and lemon and served them with that. I think tomato sauce would kill the flavors in the meatballs so I wouldn't do that, personally. I also used ground turkey that included dark meat so it might have been a little fattier than just breast meat.

I think an omelet or scrambled eggs might be good if you skip the balling. My favorite thing when making hash (think Dennison's corned beef hash texture) is the crunchy bits you get when you fry it. The little pieces that broke off the meatballs when I fried them were so good that it made me think of the hash idea so I'm a little hung up on trying that.